The present invention comprises a new Pelargonium, botanically known as Pelargonium interspecific, and hereinafter referred to by the variety name ‘PEQZ0046’.
‘PEQZ0046’ is a product of a planned breeding program. The new cultivar ‘PEQZ0046’ has intense hot rose colored inflorescences held above the medium dark green foliage that carries a deep zonation, is very heat and drought tolerant with continuous color through the most extreme summer heat, and exceptional edema tolerance on a well-branched plant habit.
‘PEQZ0046’ originates from a hybridization in a controlled breeding program made in August, in a greenhouse in Guatemala. The female parent was an unpatented, proprietary plant of P. interspecific parentage, identified as ‘11101-1’ with violet color florets and smaller more open plant habit when compared to ‘PEQZ0046’.
The male parent of ‘PEQZ0046’ was an unpatented, proprietary plant of P. interspecific parentage, identified as ‘10984-1’ with hot pink florets and a darkly zoned leaf on a less vigorous, smaller plant than ‘PEQZ0046’. The resultant seed was sown in February 2012.
‘PEQZ0046’ was selected as one flowering plant within the progeny of the stated cross in May 2012 in a greenhouse in Gilroy, Calif.
The first act of asexual reproduction of ‘PEQZ0046’ was accomplished when vegetative stem tip cuttings were propagated from the initial selection in June 2012 in a greenhouse in Gilroy, Calif.